Ice held his breath for a moment.

When using magic in Haven, the reaction was indeed linked to the way you chanted. In general, being calm would wield the results you wanted with the highest chance. This notebook was explaining the concept, for the first time ever in Haven’s lore.

Ice flipped the page when the entry had ended. He continued reading.

I had not known the difference between being alone and loneliness, at first. I found out soon enough.

 

The page ended again. A new entry began.

There was no deeper reason behind my creation. The mixture of beast and human, for example, was a mere flight of fancy. There were enough concepts of similar kind around, so I took them.

They were popular, anyway. No one would complain. It was well enough - for I did not, and do not, care.

It is not as if I could have exchanged it with the people I miss.

If I did…

There is not even any use debating it. It would attract too much attention that I do not want. All I can do is mimic their likeness behind a shell of normality that these people want.

 

Ice restricted his thoughts. He tried not to think about it, just yet, before he had finished reading everything.

The next page.

Humanity likes magic. They like the thought of the world following its bidding.

I added it on that man’s request, but he did not like it the way I did it.

I did not change it.

If you want magic, you will get it as it is - never will the world bow to you. This is the most I can accept.

 

...A new page.

I made everything start earlier, so that it could develop. Time passing quicker, so that I could watch.

Because I wanted to know how it would react...

The world bowed to me.

I fled from its lowered head.

 

………..A new page. A new entry.

My feelings are complicated.

Were my father still here, I would have had so many questions to ask. So many things that I do not understand. I am walking a path, fully expecting to run into a wall. Why am I doing this?

People will come.

I am expectant, and yet I am not.

I wonder, what even is it that I am hoping to achieve? Is it to finally free myself from this terrible feeling inside me?

 

One last page.

I am searching for a shadow I will never find within these people. 

In this fake world, can’t there be someone who makes it real?

Can’t there be someone who does not constantly destroy this illusion that I am failing to uphold?

In a way, that man’s wishes and mine are not so different.

A playground, an adventure for his customers.

He can have it. And I shall watch.

A journey is the best way to see into someone’s heart, after all.

 

The writing ended. Ice’s eyes were glued onto the last sentence. A journey, indeed.

The information he had coincidentally come across some years ago was now giving him a tremendous headache. He hadn’t expected things to truly fall into place so neatly.

Abzu, the name of the AI that preceded Haven, was the name of a god. A religious figure from long ago, a creator, and husband to Tiamat.

Both of them together made up the oceans - salt and freshwater, respectively.

Of course things could be coincidences. But at some point, if coincidences amass, they become deliberate. A story straight out of a book could become real the moment an overwhelming technology with no comparison was involved.

For an AI that could imitate humans and create a whole living game world, how hard would it be to mimic a player? How hard would it be to create a quest for one person, to create an NPC with the exact same looks, to carefully lead everything the right way?

Ice sat down on the armchair in the room, staring down at the book.

Ultimately, what did Tiamat… What did Little Droplet want from him?

He did not know how much had been an act. The way he had gotten to know Little Droplet, the other was hard to read. There were moments, like with Tiamat, where certain topics caused them to become emotional, but… They were quite controlled. It was hard to guess what went on in their head.

But the world around him told him enough. Little Droplet had created a game. Some parts, like magic, weren’t too user-friendly, but this place was harmless. There was no story of a human dying due to Haven or anything like that.

Most NPCs, while not all the same, were kinder than humans. They were programmed to have partners, friends, pets.

Ice did not feel like he was in danger. Whatever Little Droplet wanted from him, if they had decided to use force, he wouldn’t have been able to resist. Not while inside the capsule, for sure. According to the entries, they were simply lonely.

Ice’s head spun.

However, magic?

Magic did not exist. And Halwitt, who was said to have created Abzu, was still alive.

Where exactly was he messing up the line between fiction and reality again? Was this just an elaborate, odd quest?

But at this point…

Ice remembered the elven librarian he had met before.

No. Maybe he was going insane or he was acquiring eighth-grader syndrome, but he wasn’t willing to think that this was all fake.

There was a simple way to find out. He’d just… have to talk to Little Droplet.

And he knew exactly where to find them. The dragon, the creator, who had hidden itself away in an abyss.